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Comments
What is with that T-shirt?
I always found the Twitterverse Hungary/Poland-maxxing a bit weird when I cared but now it's kinda hilarious.
Also, right now the ruling coalition is tearing the pigs off public television. Removed funding and officially dismissed the Party goons in top positions. The Party's posing as some hurt minority humbly pleading for balanced and unbiased media, which is already pushing it, but... Well... Meanwhile, photo from the TV headquaters which has just been leaked onto the internet, shows that Party goons running the place have literally had a portrait of the Dear Leader hung there. (Or his twin brother. They can always maintain it's the twin brother.) It's a wonderful mess, but hard for me do describe in detail, so nothing beyond what I just said.
Ohhhhhh.
By the way, that shirt portrays a feeling I can personally get behind.
I hate to say this but it turns out the majority of the time if religious conservatives are asking for balanced/unbiased media they really don't mean it at all especially since they spend the rest of their time complaining about how the current media isn't messaging the way they want and/or offending them.
Sam hill on a whanow
Also congrats on Pg. 100 mates.
No, let's force schools to put on a ridiculously pointless Christian display. That'll solve our problems!
Someone on Twitter surely: "You just dont understand the brilliance of this move!! The moral decay is what caused the debt crisis. I can feel it in my soul and you would too if you weren't so fake and gay!!!"
Russia is using it's "anti-gay law" in new and interesting ways; to get back at influencers.
Actually, I never talked about how the Russian government now considers the International LGBTQ Movement a terrorist organization. I mean, genderqueers are annoying, but they're not Al Qaeda.
Local Stuff
Our dear leader is currently disputing an international report that compiled all the instances of a thing he's constantly doing that everybody in the country knows he's constantly doing. It's kind of hilarious; the sort of thing you'd probably only get away with if it was North Korea or something.
That's just... non-specific enough that I kinda lol'd, under the premise that I'd probably find it lol-worthy if I knew what it was about.
I'm interested in finding out exactly how they would achieve that (aside from just getting some gasoline and tossing it about).
So nowadays it's become trendy for democracy strategists, all left-wing type people, to talk about how democracy is at risk. Usually, this is just thinly veiled code about how much they dislike Donald Trump and how his election in 2016 was anti-democratic (I have no interest in dealing with this sort of doublethink so we won't get into it). However, we'll get to DT later.
Unfortunately, following the news lately I have actually noticed that stuff's gone weird. For example, did you know that two weeks ago
GeneralAbdel Fatah El-Sisi was re-(re!-)elected as Egypt's president by a landmark 90%? That is, in a third term he specifically changed the law to achieve?I get that Egypt is probably not the shining beacon of democracy people out there are seeking, but it kind of looked like Egypt was making sense as a democracy for a while there. Guess not. Can't wait for Sisi's fourth term when he gets 97% of the vote.
Now we move to a country that is genuinely more concerning. It turns out Narenda Modi is about move into his third term in office. Now, unlike with Presidents, Prime Ministers don't tend to have term limits, and India's first Prime Minister was in office for,uh, 54 years???, but you genuinely get the sense that when your president (who you serve "at the mercy of") is a literal diversity hire that you have a significant amount of power of, you're essentially the ruler of the country.
I guess this doesn't hurt India's democracy in the literal sense, but the cult of Mohdi is indeed a thing that kind of doesn't help stem the claims that the BJP is steeping itself deeper and deeper into Hindu nationalism.
And frankly we never talk about it but that thing where Xi Jinping took over China and somehow made it more totalitarian, but that did also happen.
Forgot about DT
Let's be honest, guys, Joe Biden won the 2020 election, and it's obvious why for many different reasons. For example, greater voter turnout due to the chaotic Trump admin (which, somehow, everybody has forgotten was chaotic), and overall more liberalism in the country (which might be due to "demographics!!!" but well, yeah, deal with it guys).
And frankly, the postscript has not been cute. Not accepting the loss and having sycophants lionize J6 protesters as "innocent people" (who were not at all disturbed individuals that did not need a lightning rod) was probably not the best way to earn new fans. However, it seems like the alternate media space that TrumpWorld (R) (TM) has come up with is enough to completely kneecap the mainstream Republican party, leading to what has been a weirdly embarrassing series of debates for second place (and I guess, in Nikki Haley's case, a shot at vice-presidency).
Some even took their own lives, and most had to pay back the funds they'd been accused of stealing out of their own pockets.
But, far more importantly, that talk that you're speaking of has to do with Trump's recent statements about being a dictator and taking various steps toward totalitarianism, as things he'd do if he's elected president. This stuff isn't just a relitigation of the 2016 election.
And on top of that there's his embrace of various autocratic rulers, repeatedly praising people like Putin and Kim.
Like, setting aside the perception of Trump vs. the real Trump, a threat to democracy these days doesn't quite mean the proverbial jackboots. Which is rather ironic. For years, folks have feared that one day we're gonna wake up in a world where elected officials are just a powerless fig leaf on a system where everything is run from the back seat by a confederation of emergency authorities, crisis management agencies, and distant international organizations. Well, we've been through a crisis and an emergency all right, and it turns out, the real threat to democracy comes from elected officials who get in power by appealing to these fears, and once they're in they begin to subvert the system from within to remove the possibility of being unseated by these same democratic procedures which got them in. And these folks I mentioned earlier probably voted for each. Because frankly, if you see a problem in a frickin' face mask during an epidemic and don't see a problem with the attempts by the people in power to literally hinder the groups of voters most likely to vote against them, then I gotta say I'm not keen on your priorities.
As far as I see it, Trump's actually less guilty of it than many others, all he personally did was replace a bunch of judges, and he had the legal capacity for that. My hunch is that he's just too stupid to figure it out on his own and too pompous to follow the advice of those who'd be Macchiavellian enough to try it. (I repeat, I had some genuine hopes at the beginning of his term, so I'm not, like, anti-Trump for the sake of it, he just convinced me he'd never fulfill any of them and that there's no point in thinking otherwise.) The real threat lies in that he fosters the environment for such subversion of democratic rule, emboldening those more Macchiavellian types who'd do their worst while hiding in his shadow.
Having said that, Trump is also, paradoxically, the most likely to engage in jackboots business specifically because he's too stupid to understand that siding with certain people is gonna reflect poorly on his reputation. Other soft-authoritarians tend to be media-savvy enough to publicly distance themselves from obvious hard-authoritarians.
Well, Americans frankly have the least to complain about in terms of ridiculously flawed electoral systems.
I did specifically mean the 2016-2020 stuff, which tended to have a shakier base. The more recent stuff I agree with, like I said.
I also agree with this.
I have actually noticed that Republican memes (and actually, real serious people discussing stuff) about "ballot harvesting" are kind of concerning.
Anyways, going from this, I want to discuss how I feel like
Republicanright wing schools of thought seem to constantly radicalize specifically from not listening to their own elected officials and listening instead to social media influencers who appear to know this and then jossle the fanbase by literally lying about what the elected officials are or aren't doing.Elise Stefanik, current the current Republican conference chair, was on NBC's Meet the Press and I thought she'd tone it down for a more general audience but man she was basically a rabid, pro-Trump attack dog who actually did say the thing this scare-quote article accuses her of saying.
Furthermore, she admitted to not certifying the results of the 2020 election in Pennsylvania because she didn't like the laws they'd passed there regarding the election.
Meanwhile, online, Elise Stefanik is a rabidly hated Democratic "plant" and gatekeeper who wants to "destroy" Trump. It seems like ever since she was instrumental in taking down the Harvard President, but before that it seemed like nobody liked her.
Personally, maybe I'm just mad that Kevin McCarthy was ousted from his role because he was like my political spirit animal, but frankly I'm just really over what's going on in this hybrid Too Online Republican movement.
poland stronk
poland strooooonk
I have thoughts on abortion, because that's definitely where we need to go right now.
I have thoughts primarily about anti-abortion activists, because the money, effort and community that goes into anti-abortion efforts is basically pointless to me because actual alive kids are dying every day of who even knows what and it's more important to save those than the ones the mothers didn't/don't even want.
You can just try to convince somebody you know on a personal level if they want to have an abortion, within reason. Obviously, never do this if they've been sexually assaulted, because, come on. I actually once heard some overzealous Catholic guy extol the virtue of a 14 year old sexual assault survivor who "willingly" gave birth.
It's true that I personally don't like the idea of abortion, it's kind of a waste if time telling 21st century women to not get them (because they like, can). I don't even care if eventually, they regret it, because that's what agency is for basically. I feel like being anti-abortion more than pro-alive-children is kind of a giant bag of religious posturing (especially with things like the March for Life).
Also, no matter how much they talk about emergency pregnancy centers and whatever, you do get the sense that you just want to feel better about yourself by forcing people to have babies and then just move on to getting the next unwanted child born.
Basically, I really don't think you should kill kids, but my gosh if you really want to, then whatever. I'd rather try and help out a charity that wants to help kids in Somalia or Yemen (or I mean even down the road from your neighborhood) that keep up with this game of nihilism.
Related to Religious Fundamentalism: Muslims are 100% cool with abortion anyways due to some Q'uranic saying that can be interpreted as "silly goose, clumps of cells aren't humans".
Incidentally, abortion wasn't always some sort of absolute no-no, even in Catholic tradition. It's a relatively recent thing.
I used to say that I was "anti-abortion but pro-choice", but then I realized I don't actually have a moral opinion on abortion itself anyway, so now I'm just solely pro-choice.
Meanwhile, the folks who engage in anti-abortion activism are, if not the same people, closely allied with folks who also rail against welfare and "government handouts", which is a giant bag of irresponsible hypocrisy on their part -- they want the law to force babies to be born (including ones that'll just end up dead shortly afterwards due to birth defects), but they don't want to help anyone with the consequences of such legal regimes. The only way their position makes sense is to view pregnancy and childbearing as itself some sort of punishment for having sex. Sure, it's good for people to learn that they shouldn't have sex irresponsibly, but outlawing abortion is an absolutely stupid and useless way to try to "teach" this idea and also causes tons of collateral damage in its wake.
So yeah, just let people have abortions when they decide they need them.
Also, to those anti-abortion activists who like shoving dead baby photos into people's faces: congratulations, you're the ones shoving dead baby photos into people's faces. Go away.
The link actually suggests that there's some quite amount of disagreement and vagueness regarding interpretation.
So, I was reading old posts and I got to the part about social media censorship (after Trump supporters REEEEed their way into the US capitol): (Emphasis mine.)
Now, that wasn't a difficult prediction but I didn't expect it to be put to test, it did (Elon purchasing Twitter), it happened and I'm now here to gloat about it.
I believe there are people who would join no abortion with extreme regard for quality gynaecological and perinatal care, but they are raaare. And tend to slide towards the "pro-life, but uh, you know, there are circumstances..." side of things over time.
Makes me wonder if sooner or later somebody comes up with state-owned Twitter under the premise it's basically a public service by now. (I'm thinking it would be like an official government news service.) That way nobody would come up with stupid conspiracy theories about how they are censored by the government because they would be literally censored by the government.
(Also, I don't want to interrupt the conversation, but I dropped a photo in Images and promised to explain, so I'm gonna drop the explanation and you can go on.)
The Party tried to smuggle two of their crooks into the Parliament under the premise they were MPs, and in the ruckus one of them got pounded by another of the Party goons. Despite the spin by the Party that they have been violently prevented from entering, that's all the violence that happened there.
Now, as for whether or not they were MPs. They were sent to jail for some stuff they did in, like, 2007? They were already about to go behind bars, but by then (2015 IIRC) the Prezzie won the election, and pardoned them immediately. Except that he could have only legally pardon people whose sentences, like, went official. I don't know the proper Legalese for that. Point is, the process hasn't been officially completed yet at that time, so Prezzie could not pardon them. (Dude has a PhD in Constitutional Law. His thesis supervisor apologises for him like every other week.) Anyways, they were useful to the Party so they pretended everything is fine and legal... until they lost the elections the last year.
Lo and behold, the courts completed the legal process, and they went behind bars.
I tell ya guys, that was a sad spectacle. The Prezzie claimed he already had pardoned them, so they won't go behind bars. Then he tried to hide them in the presidential palace. Then cops, like, literally entered the presidential palace to pull these goons out. They finally went behind bars, and the Party immediately began the "political prisoners" spin, Andrew Tate-level sob stories of being poorly treated in prison, yada yada yada. They dug up their wives to play the part of faithful wife who roams the empty house not knowing what to do with herself, tried bringing them up in Brussels (suddenly now it doesn't make them little snitches, stool pidgeons who smear their own house, go figure, apparently that only happens when it's not them).
The best part is that opinion research reveals not even diehard Party voters believe in that crap.
Then Prezzie, finally, pardoned them legally. But here's the kicker. This means, basically, that he acknowledged the sentence was legal too. And a PM who is legally sentenced has their mandate revoked.
Well, there are probably smug people like that, but primarily you'll see the ridiculous, almost religion-in-itself zealousness that the topic produces from people (including me for like 1.5 years, I mean, you're killing babies!!!).
In fact, maybe the former take advantage of the latter. It'd be very easy to do so.
Anyways, lately I've noticed the rise of the "Buy Now, Pay Later" scheme that is basically this new way (for now) to bypass credit checks and it certainly can't be good for the global economy.
I'm wary of suggesting yet another complete economic meltdown on the level of 2008, because I did that a lot in 2020 due to all the "stimulus" that was issued back then, but there's no way that this new form of short-term(ish) debt (basically, invoice discounting but for selling scented candles or whatever), combined with all the debt being accumulated by normal means, that's even less reliable in terms of being recoverable than the previous forms of debt, can be good for the economy.
Especially since most BNPLs are tech start ups known for getting lots of money pumped in via fundraising (warning, NSFW language) rather than the sustainability of the business model.
Especially when economists can't explain how the current upward slope on the curve is even happening.
Man, that is a lot of links.
I don't know that much about it though
It seems like the judgement about Joe Biden's memory made by Special Counsel looking into the classified documents kept in his home office, at least based on Joe Biden's recollection of when Beau Biden died, were not made because he directly asked about the president's son's death.
It seems like Biden himself brought it up and then misremembered it, and then also 'misremembered' this in order to attack the Special Counsel (along with his wife even).
Anyways, it feels a lot like Joe Biden is trying to throw this election, and the whole smorgasbord of issues surrounding his oddly intense support of Israel (note: I also have an oddly intense support of Israel, but I'm not part of the party filled with Hamas sympathizers*).
*Please don't counter this, I'm being inflammatory on purpose.
The world might be a better place if the leadership of both traded each other in for the hostages and thus sacrificed themselves in an attempt to end the war. Though, sadly, they're not the only malefactors in the area -- for example, there's some miscreant settlers in the West Bank who also regularly make things worse for everyone by terrorizing the Palestinians living there, often with Israeli officials looking the other way or even aiding and abetting them.
We need to stop social media until we can figure out what the heck is going on.
Literally her mother did this to her.
lawruling. The exact issue is that IVF clinics can be sued if they mishandle embryos for... wrongful death, rather than for mishandling property or something.Anyways, I've always been of the mind that frozen embyros are indeed people, but then I thought about it more. Fertilized eggs can still like, not make it, and this often happens, so technically nothing has a real chance of becoming a baby unless it successfully implants in a womb.
So yeah, it's a bit ick to think people are 'making babies', but becoming a human is very complex. Similarly, it's very unlikely that those reproductive gametes would ever become humans without doctoral/scientific intervention, so it's actually a bad idea to compare a lab-frozen embyro to an unborn child (but like I said, moms can execute* their unborn children if they wish). This is a new thing without an exact morality yet, so it's bad to just stick your old morality on it like it still applies.
Also, reading into it properly, I discovered that the media had been hyping this as an anti-abortion issue, and I mean it's a conservative state so maybe that's part of it, but it's certainly not exactly right in terms of reporting the issue at hand.
*Just cause I'm abortion agnostic now doesn't mean I'll soften my language.
What happened:
The issue isn't that a trans-unfriendly policy "eggs" people into bullying; the issue is that it enables bullying, by providing opportunity to those with such motives.
If you're talking about the act of pouring water on someone else, I'd like to note that beating someone unconscious is not exactly a normal behavioral response to that. But it might be expected given a history of negative interactions -- which is consistent with the information that Nex was bullied for a whole year before this happened. And furthermore, Nex was not even the ultimate instigator, as the officer's transcript indicates -- there were already negative verbal interactions before that.
Even the picture you posted indicates that this was not just an isolated incident, but something that happened after "more than a year of abuse". Even if the cause was not head trauma (and we should be careful to note that such conclusions aren't infallible), it is not unreasonable that someone who had been subjected to over a year of abuse and been beaten a day or two ago may have died either by suicide or by an accident related to a state of depression or other distress very much caused by said experiences.
Also, Benedict died one day after the fight, not two. A quick Wikipedia lookup gives at least three sources indicating this, including the very article you screenshotted.
The image you posted doesn't indicate an "indictment" (literally or metaphorically). It's possible that the family was simply reminded of the child's gender identity and pronouns.
Also, I'd like to note that an Oklahoma LGBTQ organization notes that Nex's communication of gender and pronoun preference aren't exactly clear.
Meanwhile, the article you screenshotted indicates that, while Nex's mother "struggled to understand the nuances of Nex’s gender fluidity", she was also supportive of her child and continues to be respectful of them in taking the responsibility of presenting their memory to the world at this point.